


Rose In Spanish Harlem

by EpicPandaBear



Category: Love Never Dies - Lloyd Webber, Phantom of the Opera
Genre: Drama & Romance, Erik/other woman, F/M, Interracial Relationship, Wheelchairs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-10-10 20:21:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EpicPandaBear/pseuds/EpicPandaBear
Summary: On the way to Coney Island Erik encounters an oddity of a different sort,  and is about to learn the greatest lesson of his life. Will become an alternate Love Never dies story Rated for Future content!





	Rose In Spanish Harlem

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SilverMillennium_QueenNeptune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverMillennium_QueenNeptune/gifts).

In the bowels of the _S.S. Carousel _ shivering beneath a discarded fisherman's tarp was the man who had once been the bane of all Paris. Curling up to try to retain some measure of body heat as he clung to the charred barely legible libretto of his once grand opera, _Don Juan Triumphant. _He read the lyrics over and over again to try to calm his nerves, he hated storms, hated the rocking of the boat, as it made him puke again, this time the spew going all over the manuscript which made it now completely unreadable. Erik took off his mask, wiping away the literal blood, sweat and tears from his peeling deformity. Removing the fedora from his head he pushed back the hair from his brow and groaned loudly as another belch hit him and more sick fluid came up, Seasick oh wonderful! 

The crash of the water twisted Erik's stomach as the boat to Coney island hit the heavy choppy waters of the Atlantic Ocean as he fled from the bowels of Paris. His heart shattered and the bitter tears of hurt shame and regret fell beneath the crescent moon which was the white mask he always wore even alone. Moonlight to cover up the scars of a demon, twisted and mutilated, unhuman in their ferocity. There, the Opera Ghost loomed in his sorrow, resting in the sickening arms of his eternal solitude as he watched the bunghole window while an empty sky floated passed him. Erik found no solace in the blue, starless sky that night. No peace within the confines of its omnipresent serenity only the blue eyes of a blonde cherub and a handsome young man, a perfect matching set and oh how they scorned him. The four stars which now peeked out at him, seem to cut straight through to his soul whatever was left of it. Blue glass, as stained as the window of the weeping Madonna, who watched over Christine not too long ago.

So tragic were the eyes of the Madonna watching over the child who would hurt him. As if she knew, deep down that this angel would never love a demon like himself. Even her name was one of purity to invoke the name of the Lord himself. Christine.The memory of her was like the memory of water in a desert and his mouth went dry. He tasted the chalk in the inside of his mouth and felt like he had eaten a whole mess of breads and salts. Like the wetness and coppered taste of blood when he bit his tongue too hard in concentration. Erik always liked the taste of blood, as disgusting as that is, because blood gave life and swallowing his own made him remember that he did in fact, bleed. That he was in fact, _alive. _It was almost like some sort of addiction, worse than the morphine which had clouded his mind for years. Driven him mad with anger and love, fueled his passions and drove him wild beyond what many thought would be humanly possible. 

He remembered those violet eyes of hers, so lovely, so beautiful that to look on her any longer would surely have been a mortal sin for a monster like himself and he was a monster with a twisted face to match. Erik turned his eyes to the ceiling of the cargo boat as he pulled the tarp closer around himself in a futile attempt to keep warm. Erik did not know to what far distant shore he was headed but the one blessing in his life was as double edged as the duel-swords which he'd had to face back in Persia. As sharp and jagged and apt to cause pain as any real blade which was aimed toward his chest. Just as hot, fire slicing the inside of his chest and yet, there was no mercy, no sweet release of death which a real knife would grant as a parting gift. No, no release for the wicked, as his mother had often told him people like him had no rest, the demons of the world would never find peace.

Not that he ever expected to find any.

He never did. Still, the preverbal blade of which he spoke was sharper than the physical one he longed for. On the one hand he would never have to see Christine Daae De Changy again. On the other hand, he would never see Christine Daae again. Ah the agony of an unrequited heart! Was there any other pain worse? Absinthe perhaps... the scorching vocal poison which left you too groggy and caused your voice to sound like some blasted amphibian. Erik smiled at that, the memory of that hog La Carlotta croaking and belching like some frog in a pond. A rare moment of laughter in his dreary, downcast life. At that time the Opera Ghost had possessed one small glimmer of hope that she might love him for defending her honor. But alas, she had taken his heart and thrown it right back in his face, leaving him weeping on the floor of the only home he had ever known. Staring at the reflection of his mangled fade in the murky green water, a goblin in a cave who had forever lost the princess. 

It should not have surprised him that she would go for the Vicomte instead of him, after all it was 1910 and women these days were always marriage-minded. and a handsome boy in a love match like that was surely hard to resist. But all he could do, all he could manage, was to think the selfish thoughts of why not him? He had loved Christine, he had given her everything and it was still not enough. It was just like in Erik's favorite book about the gypsy and the hunchbacked musician who lived in a cathedral. He had loved her, sheltered her, saved her from the bigotry of a society which had kidnapped and taken her away from her parents. Raising her, like himself in captivity and yet when she had needed a friend, a protector, the monster in the church gave her safe passages in the night through the cobblestone streets of Paris. He had loved her so much that he at the very end of the book, crawled into her grave, held her body close and died. 

Died the death of a man truly in love who could not bear to leave her and thus died of starvation. Their bodies only being seperated by the slow decay of time when dust would cause them to crumble and turn to little more than powder. A far more romantic death then many lovers have and still the man who loved her did not receive her love in return. And yet...still she went for the handsome, philandering soldier who did not truly give her his heart and never would. Not that the Vicomte did not love her, any idiot could see that but Erik had the feeling that he would never love Christine the way Erik did. And he pitied the poor, gruesome fellow for the torture he must have gone through, to be so in love and so very alone in the world. Cursed by a god who was supposed to love him with something he could not control. 

Erik knew better than anyone the intricacies of a wounded and pining heart as beautiful and terrible as a stained glass window was the human soul. It's delicate lines and frame work as gently woven in the afterworld as the artist did with the blowing. The warmth and tenderness of the glassblowers hands as he formed the orbs and shards in the heart of the volcano. The contrasts of the color as perplexingly beautiful and tragic as the human mind and as deadly and dangerous when broken as a madman's soul. So hard to build and so delicately destroyed was he that he actually identified with the window he had always looked at as he had waited for the object of his affections to finish flitting and flirting around with the boy and others. Never knowing the true exquisite nature of the fragile, painted glass, she knelt before every night to say her prayers. Erik had often wondered, if anyone besides him had even bothered to look at the artwork he had put in and thought about it, ever knew that a man behind a mirror, thought of killing himself with a shard of stained glass.

Stained Glass.

That's all the night sky resembled nowadays for him. Glass which might break and shatter all around him at any moment; and oh how he wished it would. There on some leaky boat, with all the hopes and dreams he had ever had, broken, fractured. Erik wished the sky would pierce his broken heart and end his suffering such as it was. That blue in particular, that navy shade which for so many was a time to rest and be loved by their spouses, lovers, those they rented for the night. That shade of blue was which had at one time been the Phantom's favorite color, now served as little more than a source of consternation. In its depths, there were so many memories, so many nights where he had fallen in love with Christine only to have her turn to a man whose eyes matched the garish, brutal morning. She had wanted the daylight, and he, Erik was a creature of the night. It was no joke when the world spoke of the cold lonely nights which bachelors took to the bottom of a wine bottle as Erik had done many times before, the dark and lonely nights which matched the blueness of his eyes.

No one would ever appreciate the tragedy of the music which Erik heard in the recesses of his soul, there would be no ending to the requiem mass which haunted him. Erik was doomed, cursed to be forever writing a mass which had never seemed more prevalent. Black ink flowed like blood from a gushing wound without a patch. The papers and ink bottle which he always kept on hand the only soulace for his oozing heart. And oh how loudly the pulse in his spirit beat; hemrogging his very humanity through the tears which thundered and bled from those blue eyes of his. He was struck with the image, as though it were a fist to his face of her in love with someone on a Christmas Eve night that was not with him. Not with her Angel no but with a lost love finally turned up after a decade and that would haunt him to the end of his days.

Her kissing that boy on the rooftop of the Paris Opera without a thought to her poor unhappy Erik. Oh the agony the memory still brought his wretched broken mind! Erik had no idea where in the world he was going but he was sure it would lead to further misery as with everything else in his life. Everything was miserable, there was no light for a man like him who had no future. He was on the run, he had lost everything he had ever loved. The Opera Ghost hung his head and continued his composing, music was the only thing that helped him anymore. He could hear nothing else save for the melodies dancing in his mind; maudlin and twisted as they are. The music and the sound of his own ragged breath as he choked back the pathetic tears which were clogging up his throat. The only thing was, that was not his own cries he was hearing but that of someone else. 

Erik reached into his pocket and pulled out the shard of glass from one of his many mirrors, a crude cutting tool that he kept as his only means of self defence against any member of the human race he happened to encounter when he was on the run. He pulled it out and advanced, whoever his companion was they were in for one bloody and brutal death. He looked at the mask which leered back at him, and he took off his mask. His hideous face would be the last thing this person saw. If the world wanted a monster, then it was high time he just gave in and gave them what they wanted. And Monsters killed without mercy. Plus, **plus **\---and this was the person's most egregious offence--- the sound was just so _beyond _irritating when he was already tense and his head hurt. He would have killed them just to shut them up and let him return to his quite depression as he had planned. 

He could see on the ship that there was a case of Carribean rum. Perfect. After he killed the intruder, he could drink himself to sleep and forget this awful night. Maybe he might drink himself to death and have done with it all. But first things first, he had to eliminate the source of that _dreadful noise. _It did not matter to the Phantom who this person was or was not; he had neither the time or the patience to deal with a member of the human race as such. Another person to gawk at him, jeer him, turn him over to the police and have him hanged for the price that was still on his head. Lord only knew that it was a substantial one; the infamous Opera Ghost was worth a pretty penny and it was a price Erik could not afford to pay. Another human being gone well that was nothing to him. They were expendable to him. As worthless to him as he was human to them and whoever this tearful person was they would recieve no pity from a man who had never received any compassion. 

Erik skulked to his feet allowing his wounded right leg -sliced by the shards of mirrored glass- to drag behind him in a limp which would have made Quasimodo envious and caused him to take notes. But a lurch in the current of the water caused him to fall forward with a resounding crash which was in actuality himself hitting his head. The room swam in his vision and everything seemed to have developed a pair and yet, it was peaceful as finally his world went mercifully black. The darkness even brought him to the nightmares that he kept on his mind which played on a never-ending loop. Mother, screaming at the sight of him, mother beating him, pushing him away, the mirror... the feel of broken glass crashing through his face on his fifth birthday. He screamed for his mother, he screamed and screamed and then he woke up. His eyes focusing on the face of a woman, a woman with dark hair and brown eyes who was staring at him with such utter curiosity that, he had this urge to strangle her. 

Instead all he could manage was, "Bluebeard...remember...Bluebeard." 

She blinked twice before speaking to him in a heavy spanish accent, "Rose..." 


End file.
